Given their manic obsession with the United States, the communists have been unwilling to see that the Indo-US civil nuclear initiative — in its conception, scope and consequences — was global. It was about changing the current international rules on nuclear commerce to allow India to regain access to the global high technology market. This in turn meant getting almost all the major countries in the world to accept India as a legitimate nuclear partner.

Nor was the deal only about India’s energy security, the size of its future nuclear programme and its contribution to the nation’s electric power generation. In its essence, the deal was about redefining India’s position in the international hierarchy. The current nuclear non-proliferation regime decrees by law that India is a nuclear pariah. There was no way India could not have accepted this fate as a permanent condition. The deal is about giving India its rightful place in the management of the global nuclear system and the high technology trade.

As India prepares to approach the 35-member Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, New Delhi has a great challenge at hand — of turning adversaries towards neutrality, neutrals into supporters and friends into active advocates.

As a New York Times editorial revealed over the weekend, those who oppose India’s membership of the nuclear club have not raised the white flag. The caution from the Times against an international rush to implement the nuclear deal is likely to be repeated by some other leading publications. So long as the CPM and the BJP were blocking the deal, India’s international adversaries had no reason to step into the debate. The very moment that India signalled its readiness to make the final push, the opponents have come out of the woodwork.

... contd.